The UC Marketing Capstone Experience

Planning

July 30, 2017

On Being Single – Advice for Myself at the Beginning of The Capstone Experience

No, I am not here to give you relationship advice – at least not in the romantic sense. Instead, as I look back on my capstone journey I reflect on the opportunity for personal growth that I chose to take out of the experience.

My advice? Before you begin your project, step back and assess the resources you have available. No, I don’t mean the number of Post-its you own (although I do love Post-its). Instead, take a moment from the rush of the day. Sit down and take time to assess yourself and your network:

What are your current strengths? On which tasks do you have to work harder than others? Are there any skills you know you want to refine? What are your biggest fears? What patterns have you demonstrated in previous projects that you want to kill or embrace? What about the task at hand looks the most challenging?

You, just like any other business asset have limits and strengths. Why not be honest with yourself and embrace what you bring to the table with self-transparency? Embrace the nuances that make you, you. Forgive yourself when it is something you anticipate struggling with. Instead, embrace you own quirks. Then, pull in a self-built team of individuals and resources to fill in those voids. Doing so will allow you to move forward strategically.

Next, whether you are or are not on a team, take a moment to assess what people you know bring to the table. How can you find outside resources to fill in the gaps between where you are and where you need to be to get the job done? Your team does not have to just be your peers. If you work independently, it is important to build out a purposeful team along the way. Your team members already include Professor Boyd and your peers. However, you can build it out with industry experts, future mentorships, or other researchers.

As the Capstone experience closes, I am thinking forward towards future projects. For the next one, I will start with a mind map featuring myself at the core surrounded by individuals and topics of study – a glance at the expanded knowledge network that goes far beyond what one individual can provide. Taking the time to build this visual will remind myself how to strategically plan when to step away from my own rumination and gain a new perspective. If you are hard on yourself like I am, planning how to be the best, single individual and strategically ask for help will be a great skill, and one I look forward to continuing to build beyond this project.

June 26, 2017

This week we are just gathering all of our information and putting it together. Finding the data then outlining how it will be effective for Braxton to use. David and I have come up with some really good ideas and if we can show them with the data how they can link together we think they will be really excited about them. I hope Braxton likes these new ideas we give but I think we will be fine if we have the data to support what we are thinking, plus it is innovative so that goes along with their ideas for business. Just need to set up a few meetings for the end of the week and hopefully that all get worked out! Let's do this and keep moving!

May 22, 2017

After meeting with my client I feel that this project could go in so many directions. There isn't really any structure for this project, it seems, except for the fact they want to sell a co-branding experience that seems authentic to the customer. Though this task is not outline clearly, my partner and I have found ourselves coming up with so many different ideas. For now, I am not exactly sure which direction to take this project. We still need to meet with Graters and understand their positioning and how they liked co-branding with Braxton as well, hopefully we get that meeting rolling sometime this week. Then we need to have a meeting next week with the founder and other staff members of Braxton to get a better feel of what exactly they foresee this project heading, hopefully by then we can also give some guided suggestions of where we think we can make an impact in their business. As of right now I feel fine about the project and I find myself getting excited to work on the capstone. My only concern would be to take on to many different avenues and not delivering successfully on all of them, since I have never worked on a big scale project before and one where you sort of get to pick the direction; I find myself picking to many different directions. I might need to talk to Drew about how to narrow my focus for the project but still pick one that has the most substantial impact for Braxton.

April 28, 2017

Spring 2017 Capstone is over! This has been a stressful, sometimes overwhelming, but ultimately rewarding experience. Here's my advice for future Capstone students.

No matter how much time you think you have ... you don't. Everyone is saying it, so let me join in the chorus: Time is your enemy, and what's more, it probably won't feel that way until you're down to the wire. Even if you think that you have just one smallish task to do before your next milestone, trust that it will take you longer to accomplish that task than you think. Either the client will require more review, your resource won't be as accessible as you thought, some emergency will pop up, or SOMETHING will happen that will leave you feeling panicked. Work as far ahead as possible.

If possible, schedule frequent and regular check-ins with the client. Communication with your client and within your team is essential during Capstone. We were lucky enough to have a client who was interested in checking in once per week. This kept us on task and made us certain we were heading in a direction the client would be happy with. If your client can't have weekly check-ins, consider having a team check-in to make sure work is progressing and everyone is on the same page.

Do the background work. The Big Picture, the positioning boxes, the dynamic variable, the attribute value map - even if it doesn't seem relevant to your project, or if the client is directing you toward a different model, do the stuff you learned in Marketing Strategy anyway. The client will love seeing a marketing model they may not have heard of before, and they'll love that you took the initiative to work beyond what they requested.

Do primary research. Our client said the thing they most appreciated about our project was the interviews. Your target is out there. You can find them.

April 3, 2017

Last week, Team Behr submitted our survey that will provide the data to back up the secondary research and qualitative interviews we've done throughout the semester. This was a big milestone for us and an important step toward completing the project, and we were happy that our contact Lisa complimented our hard work and dedication in designing it.

Then, the next day, we got another dose of variability.

Lisa contacted us and said the company we had planned to have run the survey would not be charging $4.95 per response, as estimated. Instead, they were quoting an amount that worked out to $140 per response! (Apparently the targeted responses we are seeking could not be accomplished with a simple screening question, as estimated; the survey company would have to do some additional legwork to find people in the target.)

Behr has been fairly free with gift cards to reward our interview subjects, but a five-figure payout for 300 survey responses was a little more than they had expected. Luckily, they were able to pivot quickly. By the time we had responded saying we would investigate other possibilities for collecting survey responses, they were working industry connections with the same goal in mind. The new plan is to survey subscribers to an industry magazine. This won't give quite the random sample that was initially discussed, but it's an efficient (and hopefully inexpensive) way to find our target.

But that brings us to a new round of ambiguity. With the delay in implementing the survey, will we receive the data in time to analyze it, implement it into our report, and make the presentation in the next three weeks? Time will tell, but time is getting shorter day by day.

March 27, 2017

This week, Team Behr went searching for more insights. We interviewed paint store employees, homeowners who have hired painters, and the editor of a painting trade magazine, trying to discover if the people connected to professional painters could tell us anything about our target and whether anything distinguishes them from the rest of the pro segment.

One thing I've noticed about this project is how it has forced me to step outside my comfort zone when it comes to asking people for information. Walking into a paint store and explaining that you're a student who is working on a project and can you ask some questions about professional painters? That is definitely outside my comfort zone!

We also presented another draft of our survey to our contact, Lisa, who met with her colleagues and made final suggestions. Based on the questions they asked to add, it seems the team at Behr wants to know more about: a) why people become painters in the first place, and b) their use of digital tools to run their businesses. This is a more specific focus than we've previously discussed, and we know it's partly because of some research Behr recently obtained. We'll ask Lisa more questions at our next check-in to see what she's thinking.

Two meetings with Drew this week have helped us clarify the questions we're asking and given us a way forward. A recommendation for Behr is on its way! Now we just need to see if the survey we've designed confirms the hypotheses we've developed based on our interviews.

February 12, 2017

This week, Team Behr has focused on secondary research. Our final project will focus on primary research - i.e., surveys we conduct ourselves - but before we get started, we want to see what's already out there.

Our project poses an interesting challenge because there is no existing research on the specific segment we are targeting - which, as I've mentioned before, is basically a combination of two demographic groups. One of the groups has plenty of articles written on it, but a lot of the articles contain broad, sweeping statements about the entire group that are seemingly unsourced, and it can be difficult to sort out fact from conjecture. The other group is far less covered, and is sometimes lumped in with other groups that may or may not have the same needs. For both, the challenge is establishing accurate, factual information about the target.

So we are doing what we can, seeing what others have learned about how these two groups see the world, and attempting to piece it together into an understanding of our chosen segment.

Our research is also focusing on what our segment is saying about themselves; we are checking in on them via online forums. We're lurking on a forum suggested to us by Lisa at Behr - a forum dedicated to members of one of our demographic groups. When reading their posts, our intent is to discover what problems and needs they have that Behr might be able to solve.

Hopefully all of this research will help inform the quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews we plan to do next - our questions will be better if they are informed by an understanding of how this segment lives, works, and makes decisions (particularly about paint). Our next milestone is actually crafting those questions and finding some people to speak with in person, so more on that soon.

February 6, 2017

Last week, Team Behr presented our project charter to our contact, Lisa. It was gratifying to hear how impressed she was with the work we've already done, and what we propose to do over the next few months.

Lisa seemed happy with our charter, but she felt the need to present it to her colleagues at the Behr innovation team. This makes total sense, but it also reminds me that we aren't working just for Lisa. We also have to meet the needs of dozens, maybe hundreds, of people at the client organization.

Our calls with Lisa take place in a bubble, where we discuss our progress and ask our questions with just her. Outside the bubble are all the people she has to answer to - not to mention Drew, who we must keep updated on our progress (and who we will meet for our first review meeting this coming week).

Outside the bubble constitutes another source of ambiguity, and it's also been our first source of variability. Lisa wrote back and asked us to update the charter with an additional goal for the research - something that hasn't been a big focus in our conversations with her, but that is listed in one of our modules, and that one of her teammates thought should be included in the charter. (I'm making it sound like scope creep, but it's really not - just something we would probably have included in the final report anyway as part of the analysis, and now it's in the charter explicitly.)

Lisa is great, and our conversations with her have been going really well ... but we can't lose sight of the fact that we aren't the only ones with a stake in this project. This week has reminded me that we have to satisfy our client both inside and outside of the bubble.

January 29, 2017

This week, Team Behr worked on gaining some firsthand knowledge of our client's customers by doing some "secret shopping" at the client's store (The Home Depot) and a competitor's store. We also worked on pulling together some quotes so our contact, Lisa, can establish a budget.

As I wrote last week, we need to conduct market research on a very specific demographic group, and we've been asked not to use any Behr internal mailing lists. That means one of two things: trade organizations, or paying for responses. We have reached out to a trade group and may have some luck getting to survey their members, but otherwise, we're probably looking at several thousand dollars for a statistically significant survey.

Lisa has said she can give us a budget once we provide her with some pricing options, but I can't shake the feeling that she might not have bargained on a budget of thousands of dollars for "just a school project." This, of course, is nonsense of my own invention. There's no reason whatsoever that survey responses should be somehow less valuable when purchased by students, and Lisa certainly hasn't given us any indication that she thinks that's the case. And yet, I'm concerned that talk of a budget might put a strain on our cordial relationship.

It's always difficult to talk about money, isn't it?

But I suppose money is one of the unpleasant topics that a marketing manager must face in the real world. We provide a valuable service (that, if all goes well, will lead to the company making or saving millions of dollars), and we will require capital to do it. That's just how it goes, and so we might as well get used to having the discussion.

Still, I hope the trade organization comes through with their list. That'd be a win-win.

January 23, 2017

My first reaction when being chosen to work with Greater Cincinnati Water Works was one of great excitement. Being from Cincinnati I have heard a lot about the great work being done but I had never done research on the company. This project is going to be providing me with exactly that. Our initial client meeting will be taking place this Friday! It is a little later than most others I imagine, but that is alright. GCWW is assembling a team of bright minds to meet with Cathy and I to discuss the project.

The time before our initial meeting has provided me with extensive time to do good research on GCWW and what they stand for. I plan to continue doing research and preparing for the meeting. Cathy has also been working on her own research and we are going to meet today before class to discuss our findings and to decide what needs to be done moving forward before our meeting on Friday.

It is crazy to think that this is my final semester of graduate school... It seem like just yesterday I was starting undergrad. Here is to the final large conquest of my college career.

I am excited to finally meet everyone at GCWW!

Currently I am standing at the foot of the hill, looking up. But soon Cathy and I will be standing at the top of the hill!